The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
9th August to 21st August 1946

DR. BOEHM: No, not this document, Mr. President, the whole
series of documents -

THE PRESIDENT: If you will ask the witness questions instead
of arguing, we shall get on better; and if you will not ask
questions, you will have to stop the examination.

DR. BOEHM: Very well, Mr. President.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. In another article in Document 3050 of 24th March, 1934,
with the heading, "Off to the Land," it states:

"The, most effective means in the hands of the clever
leader is to implant in the hearts of the youth now
growing up a love of nature and to steel them physically
and mentally."

Do you conclude from this article, which was not written on
your instructions any more than the others, that it denotes
a military attitude or military training?

[Max Juettner] A. No.

Q. In Document 3050-E it states in the third line:

"For the SA man there is no tiring, no slothful resting,
whether in the political struggle or in the maintaining
and saving of valuable goods for German political
economy. The SA is always ready."

Do you take that to imply a military attitude? I do not know
who wrote this article; it was not ordered by you in any
case; but can one adopt the point of view expressed here to
mean a military training or a militaristic attitude?

A. No one would take it to mean a militaristic attitude or
an attempt at one.

[Page 221]

Q. Document 3050-F is called militaristic because it
contains a service plan, according to which six hours of
drill, three hours of shooting practice and three hours of
field exercises per month are demanded of the SA members. I
should like to ask you in the first place, what did the
drill consist of?

A. As the name implies, it consisted of exercises for the
public appearance of the SA at demonstrations, parades and
so forth. That was a matter of course and a necessity. For
example, if, as was my responsibility, one had to move
120,000 men in big parades at the Party Rally, they had to
be prepared for this by drill if the spectacle was to be at
all passable. It was for these things that the men were
drilled, to teach the men a good bearing, as is the case in
other countries too.

Q. And what was the shooting practice?

A. We had only small calibre rifles, the sport model. We
could, therefore, shoot only with small calibre. That was
sport shooting.

Q. What did the field exercise consist of?

A. An attempt was made to train the men mentally and to
awaken in them a love of nature. By the various exercises
the men should be induced to think, it was to train their
courage and to give them initiative, the same as in the
motoring exercises in the NSKK, where motor cyclists were
trained in cross-country riding and had to overcome
difficult terrain.

Q. Then another article is contained in this document, which
reads:

"The difference between shooting and aiming is the
difference between the training of the SA and that of the
soldiers of the nation, the Wehrmacht."

And then it goes on to say:

"The military field observation was only a fraction of
what is understood under SA field observation."

Now, I should like to ask you to what extent the SA field
observation has anything to do with the military field
observation, particularly whether it is important that the
SA field observation does not go far beyond the military
points? Is it correct that perhaps the SA man did not
consider field observation at all merely from the point of
view of shooting in the technical sense? Is it true that
above all through this field observation he got to know his
own country, and with this end in view he was trained in
marching and in field observation?

A. All the questions you have put were not leading
questions. It was so clear to every SA man that our field
observation in the SA could in no way be compared with the
military field observation which was along purely military
lines. We in the SA combined field observation and field
exercises with the ideological training of the man, namely,
we wanted to awaken and deepen in him the love of his own
country. Above all, this field service was intended to teach
him to know the natural beauties of his country, the
historical significance of the sector in which these
exercises were carried out.

THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid you do not understand what I say.
I thought I had told you that we quite understood your
argument that the training which was given to the SA was not
for military purposes but was for other peaceful purposes.
Your argument is not proved by repetition; and the Tribunal
does not desire to hear any more of this.

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President. Then I can omit the next
articles. They are all more or less the same in content. I
will not put any further questions.

Then Document 4009 was submitted yesterday. It was to prove
that the article in the SA Mann was a semi-official article
of the supreme SA leadership. This is also a subject which
has been repeatedly discussed. But if these things are
submitted ten times, Mr. President, then I ask permission to
comment on them ten times. These things were dealt with
before the Commission down to the smallest detail, and every
point, even the smallest, was elucidated before the
Commission. Yesterday this document was submitted again; and
therefore I am forced to comment on it once more, much as I
dislike doing so.

[Page 222]

THE PRESIDENT: Ask the witness questions about the document.
I suppose there is a difference in your language between
making a comment and asking a question. Will you ask the
witness a question?

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President.

Q. Witness, a document was submitted here written by the
Press consultant of the paper Der SA Mann to a Herr Koerbel,
who was at that time Reichsleiter. He was induced to write
an article. Did that have anything to do with the supreme SA
leadership?

A. I did not quite understand. Koerbel was not a
Reichsleiter. The letter was sent to whom?

Q. The letter was sent to the Reichsleiter Rosenberg.

A. A letter from Koerbel to Rosenberg?

Q. Yes.

A. He wrote it in his capacity as editor of the SA Mann. If
he wanted to have an article for the SA Mann, that was
entirely his affair. If he also gives himself the title of
Press consultant of the supreme SA leadership, then in this
capacity his task consisted merely in transmitting the rest
of the German news, which we wanted to have published, and
in taking care of its publication.

Q. 750,000 subscribers are mentioned in this letter. It
could be suspected, although it was not expressed here, that
these 750,000 readers were members of the SA. Can you
comment on that?

A. I do not know exactly how these 750,000 subscribers were
made up. I only know that the paper, about which we had very
mixed feelings, did not meet with a very good reception and
consequently was little read in SA circles, comparatively
speaking.

Q. But you know that this paper was then banned?

A. It was banned in 1939.

Q. Another document was submitted yesterday, 366-1. That is
a report of Herr Roechling as a special delegate of the OKW
with the youth leader of the German Reich in connection with
the Sudeten German Free Corps.

I should like to ask you to explain the connection between
the SA and the Sudeten German Free Corps.

A. Your Lordship, as far as I remember, I have already
commented on this before the Commission. I was assigned by
the SA as liaison Fuehrer to Conrad Henlein.

Q. Herr Guettner, perhaps I may shorten this by asking: Is
it true that the SA associated or co-operated with this
Sudeten German Free Corps only to the extent that these
people, during the time they were in Germany as refugees,
when they were not organized into a Free Corps, were given
economic support by the SA; for instance, perhaps one or
other was given a blanket, or cooking utensil, so that they
should have what was necessary merely to exist.

A. Individual groups of the Free Corps were helped by
individual SA men without orders from us to do so, in the
way which defence counsel has just stated. They helped to
take the refugees back and supplied the Free Corps members
with the necessary blankets, cooking utensils, and so forth.
And then these SA men helped the men of the Free Corps in
forming their groups. The Free Corps itself had no military
value. If I may speak quite plainly, it was a loosely
organized band, a gang of people who had taken upon
themselves the task of receiving the refugees who were
streaming back, some of them in great misery, bringing them
to refugee camps, and preventing incidents and attacks at
the border which actually did occur. In other words,
protecting their fellow citizens. This Free Corps did not
have any military value.

Q. Then Document 3993-PS was submitted yesterday. It is a
letter from the Chief of Staff Lutze to Reichsleiter Alfred
Rosenberg, in which he thanks him for congratulations which
he received because the pre-military and post-military

[Page 223]

training of the SA was entrusted to him. This has already
been replied to several times. Is it true that this pre-
military and post-military training had reached the stage it
was intended to reach?

A. I said yesterday, through the decree of Hitler of
January, 1939 -

Q. May I ask you to be very brief, Herr Guettner?

A. - this task was given to the SA -

THE PRESIDENT (interposing): The Tribunal has asked about it
in cross-examination. What is the point of putting it to him
again? He, has given his account of it in cross-examination.

DR. BOEHM: Mr. President, I asked him to be brief. I only
did it to complete the evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the good of doing it if he has done
it already? It does not matter whether you do it briefly or
not; he is going to say the same thing.

DR. BOEHM: Document 923 was also submitted yesterday. Are
the cases -

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal wants you to understand that the
function of re-examination is not to repeat what has been
said in cross-examination, but simply to explain and to
alter, or to explain and clarify - if you like the word -
what has been said in cross-examination.

DR. BOEHM: Yes, Mr. President.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Document 923 was submitted to you yesterday. It concerned
the legal handling, of the Pflaumer and Schoegel cases. Did
you have any part in the measures which were taken as a
result of this case? Did you use any influence on any of the
judges who acted in this case, or did you take the view
that, basically, in all cases of amnesty, that amnesty or
the amnesty decree was an affair of the State, and you
naturally wanted to apply it to your SA members in cases in
which this was possible?

A. As I said yesterday, I had no part in these two cases. I
did not know about them. The SA, leadership tried and
punished offenders, that was its principle and it acted
accordingly. In cases of amnesty, it applied to the SA as
well.

Q. It might be important to mention here that the punishment
of the concentration camp guards at Hohenstein, the
juridical punishment, was set on foot and carried out not at
the suggestion of Reichsstatthalter Mutschmann, but at the
suggestion of SA Obergruppenfuehrer von Killinger. The SA
leadership asked for the punishment of the Hohenstein men,
and the Court carried it out.

DR. BOEHM: Then Document 784 was submitted yesterday, which
was said to be a typical case of forcefully suppressing
political opponents, and I have discovered in my study of
the files that particularly old fighters of the NSDAP were
ill-treated. For example, there was a certain Stahl who
joined the SS in 1933 and a certain Seifert, an old fighter
from the year 1924. There was the case of Kreisobmann
Krueger of the German Labour Front and a member of the NSDAP
since 1931 by the name of Ginsk.

In this connection, Mr. President, I should like to ask the
members of the prosecution to give me the letters which are
missing here, especially the letter of the Chief of Staff
Lutze and the letter of Hess which my colleague Seidl asked
for yesterday.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Now, I should like to ask you, witness

SIR DAVID MAXWELL FYFE (interposing): My Lord, I had a
search made, and we have not got the documents, the answers
from defendant Hess or from Chief of Staff Lutze.

[Page 224]

DR. BOEHM: That letter would have been very essential, Mr.
President, to show the attitude of Chief of Staff Lutze in
this case.

Now I must go back to Document 1721, Mr. President. It is a
report of completed action of Brigade 50 to the Group
Kurpfalz-Mannheim, and the order of the supreme SA
leadership in connection with the which objects were
possibly stolen or otherwise lost in the year 1938.

BY DR. BOEHM:

Q. Witness, the situation was dealt with here yesterday in
cross-examination as if there were a number of indications
which fitted in and vouched for the authenticity of the
report of Brigade 50.

Please note the report and at the top, at the right, look at
the three letters which are contained in this document,
"Z.d.A." The same letters appear on your order signed
"Guettner" at the left at the bottom, next to the reception
stamp. You are not a handwriting expert, but even a layman
can see whether these letters were written by the same hand.

Please comment on this.

A. As far as I can recall, I was asked yesterday whether I
saw these letters. I said yes. When I compare them, I must
say that on one document they are written in a different
handwriting from that on the other document. That is shown
by the flourish and the peculiar "A" and "D." The "Z" also
is different.

Q. It is not difficult for a layman to see that. Now, please
look at the reception stamp on the left at the bottom on
your order, in the first square

A. Yes, I see.

Q. These are two letters. Is it probable that these two
letters which may mean the same thing were written by the
same hand?

A. On closer observation of the writing on the stamp, one
must come to the conclusion that the stamp which follows the
report of Brigade 50 is forged. The differences are so
obvious. The F, for instance, the H, and the crooked G or
whatever it is supposed to be indicate that it is copied.

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